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You are a person after my heart. I have my tattered copy of Pamela and the Blue Mare!

How about "Fools over Horses", or any of the Dorothy Lyons books? Rutherford Montgomery, Glenn Balch, Paul Brown, etc.

I use www.abebooks.com they search many used book stores and save your "wants" and will email you when copies are found. They are very good about the description of the condition of the texts and usually offer several choices in varying dollar amounts.

"If you would have only one day to live, you should spend at least half of it in the saddle."

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Everythingbutwings:You are a person after my heart. I have my tattered copy of Pamela and the Blue Mare!

How about "Fools over Horses", or any of the Dorothy Lyons books? Rutherford Montgomery, Glenn Balch, Paul Brown, etc.

I use www.abebooks.com they search many used book stores and save your "wants" and will email you when copies are found. They are very good about the description of the condition of the texts and usually offer several choices in varying dollar amounts.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the site. Whenever you *next* pull out Pamela and the Blue Mare (and I am jealous!) could you either post or email me with the author's name?

Also, anyone who has a copy of "Challenger", I would love the author's name (and perhaps the publisher, if that is information that would help in a search).

Thanks a lot. Oh, to have these books again. It is scary how vivid my memories of them are...

I found the perfect distance but they put the jump in the wrong place.

Go to this link and print it off. I think you must be remembering Pamela and the Blue
Mare go to the Olympic Trials, sequel to the first. I have the original book where Pamela raises the mare and hunts and shows in the Corinthian class against the MFH, etc.http://www.prairienet.org/jjahiel/resources/ficjuv.txt
This is a wonderful list of many old favorites.

How about "Coppers Chance" and "Scarlet Royal" or the wonderful one with the girl who inherits a mare and gelding from her uncle. Gazelle is killed in a stable fire but she goes on to show Bluebird in jumpers.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Everythingbutwings:
[B]Go to this link and print it off. I think you must be remembering Pamela and the Blue
Mare go to the Olympic Trials, sequel to the first. I have the original book where Pamela raises the mare and hunts and shows in the Corinthian class against the MFH, etc.http://www.prairienet.org/jjahiel/resources/ficjuv.txt
This is a wonderful list of many old favorites.

B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OMG you just made my day! I had no idea there was a sequel. The only one I had was the first where Pamela was scared of horses and she and the blue mare got together and she won everything at the hunter trials and her grandfather gave her the horse. (Hope I didn't give theending away to anyone who is aobut to read it. LOL.)

And now they go to the Olympics..... Sigh.

Looking back, since my name is Pamela, now I know where I got my penchant for gray horses!

I found the perfect distance but they put the jump in the wrong place.

What about Jane McIlvane McClary's "Cammie" books? I loved those when I was a kid, especially the first one where she learns to ride Brave Sabrina. I'd love to find those books but have been unsuccessful so far.

Non-fiction, but I also loved (and still read to this day) Jane Dillon's "School for Young Riders" and "Form over Fences"

There was a collection of shorts by - - CJ Anderson comes to mind? - - only remember one, the last...about a old gray horse who had turned a millstone his whole life - they retired him, turned him out in a wonderful grassy field with shade trees and a creek. He moped and lost weight and was generally depressed because he felt worthless. One day, he heard the mill whistle blow as he was standing near a tree. He started walking around it...until he heard the next whistle.. And he gained weight, felt good about himself again -
and I'm sitting here at work with tears in my eyes just remembering it. It is SO important to have value in your life - right up to the end.....

Patsey Gray, Patsey Gray, Patsey Gray! Her "Horsepower" book is still one of my most dog-eared favorites. "Blue Ribbon Summer" and "Jumping Jack" are also good. Those are her main ones about "our" world, but she has several others worth checking out. (As with most old kids' horse books, though, you usually have to settle for buying the ex-library ones ... but that doesn't seem to hurt the price or collectibility, since there seem to be so few of them around!)

After all the praise of Pamela and her mare, I will have to go looking for them ... have never heard of them. Maybe it's an East Coast vs. West Coast thing? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Beezer:Patsey Gray, Patsey Gray, Patsey Gray! Her "Horsepower" book is still one of my most dog-eared favorites. "Blue Ribbon Summer" and "Jumping Jack" are also good. Those are her main ones about "our" world, but she has several others worth checking out. (As with most old kids' horse books, though, you usually have to settle for buying the ex-library ones ... but that doesn't seem to hurt the price or collectibility, since there seem to be so few of them around!)

After all the praise of Pamela and her mare, I will have to go looking for them ... have never heard of them. Maybe it's an East Coast vs. West Coast thing? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I just found out, thanks to the link provided by everythingbutwings (geeze it is hard to type athat without putting in spaces...) that Patsey Gray is the author of the book "Challenger" that was my second fave of all time! And it took place at Cow Palace (Grand National). When I was a kid, I was used to MSG and the maclay finals, so I thought that the author of challenger didn't know whereof she spoke, until I moved to Woodside, Ca and showed at Cow Palace. Then it all made sense....

Pamela ... is a VERY east coast book (hunter trials/fox hunting etc.) ---veddy vedy Virginia...

But, as a cross cultural experience, it would be a good read for anyone [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I just found out, thanks to the link provided by everythingbutwings (geeze it is hard to type athat without putting in spaces...) that Patsey Gray is the author of the book "Challenger" that was my second fave of all time! And it took place at Cow Palace (Grand National). When I was a kid, I was used to MSG and the maclay finals, so I thought that the author of challenger didn't know whereof she spoke, until I moved to Woodside, Ca and showed at Cow Palace. Then it all made sense.... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Doh! I think I might even have "Challenger" sitting on a bookshelf at home. If not, I will definitely have to go hunting for it. And the Cow Palace indeed used to be "the" in place for the Northern California set; it's a grand place, isn't it? Our version of the indoors. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] It's been so long since I've been up that way ... do they still hold hunter shows at the Cow Palace? We used to show up in Santa Rosa (and Sacramento) a lot but haven't been up there in years....

But back to books.... Anyone remember "Dark Sunshine" by Dorothy Lyons? Or "Blue Roan"? Anything by Jean Doty is great....

And speaking of East versus West, several years ago when I was at a bookseller in Cambridge, Mass., who specialized in horse books, she highly praised a kids book that had a title along the lines of "Silver Spurs" or ??? I know it had "spurs" in the title and it was about hunters; she said she could never keep copies in stock because all the "pony moms" who read it as kids have to find it again for THEIR pony-riding kids. Anyone have a clue about what book she meant?

Dorothy Lyons really got around the horse world! Silver Birch, Midnight Moon, Golden Soveriegn and Copper Khan were all in a series of saddle seat and driving. Smoke Rings was (I think) about cutting horses, Dark Sunshine with they crippledgirl, Blythe, Red Embers about polo, Blue Smoke and it's sequel were California 3 day horses and another was about an Appy mare, can't remember the name right now. OH! Bright Wampum!

Wonderful stories. Fools over Horses is VERY much the Virginia setting, girl trying to raise hunters on her family estate, family friend (non horsey good guy) tries to save the place from going for taxes.

There was another about the hunt country that was more like a soap opera (seemier side of the classy set), I remember a big to do over the highway cutting through the hunt territory. Loads of horses, sex and partys. Had a scene reminiscent of the Godfather - drat! Can't remember the title.

I've been lurking avidly for about a week, succeeding nobly in resisting the urge to sign on, but mention of Pamela and the Blue Mare did it. How I loved that book! And the sequel, too. Also everything by Patsy Gray, especially Horse in her Heart. Dorothy Lyons and Jane McIlvaine were favorites as well. Did anyone else like Afraid to Ride by CW Anderson? (By the way, is it okay to jump in or do I need to introduce myself somewhere first?)

Nope, we know you now! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] You will have to learn the smilies, though, there WILL be a test!

How about "Black Horse of Culver" or "Frog, the Horse that Knew no Master"? I have found that if you have one book that you really like, go to one of the book match search engines and search on the author's name. You will find a treasure trove of others by the same person, some times add that name as illustrator and another gold mine.

This thread wasn't limited to books of fiction, so I would like to nominate the instructional book that I loved as a child -- "Heads Up, Heels Down" -- my favorite, hands down. :-)

As far as works of fiction, I echo Everythingbutwings, I loved "Frog"

Incidentally, Everythingbutwings, noticed you mentioned "Black Horse of Culver" -- my uncle (retired US Army colonel) commanded Culver Institute's Black Horse Troup during the 60's and instructed all of the riders in it. I remember going to visit them in Indiana in about 1961 and touring the stables.

Patsey Gray lived in the East Bay and used to show her Quarter Horse at schooling shows at Heather Farms Park in Walnut Creek, for you East Bay'ers. When I was a kid, I was *SO* totally in awe of her. Once my parents parked our truck and trailer next to hers.... I was WAY too shy to say hello, but I spent more of that show staring at her (and wishing I could be her when I grew up--a rider AND a writer) than looking after my pony. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]